After a full season of The Morning Show trying to show why Chris and Yanko are integral parts of the storyline, the season 4 finale makes them both a non-factor.
Yanko and Chris have each played central roles in the subplot throughout the fourth season. However, neither storyline was relevant by the time it came to the season's conclusion. Chris had some essential emotional narrative moments that gave more depth to her background, which at least worked toward character development. Yet, Chris's story, nor Chris herself, played any significant role in the season's finale episode.
Yanko fell to the same fate, with the exception that he did not receive similar treatment in emotional character growth. Yanko, who has been on the series since it started, has been nothing short of disposable all season. While a few select episodes tried to remind audiences of a previous relationship, even that wasn't enough to push the character forward. He gets engaged to a woman, and then his plot basically ends.
Yanko and Chris have absolutely nothing to do in a season finale where the episodes leading up to it tried to suggest they were more important, only to fail them in the end. Instead, The Morning Show focused on other characters to be more significant: Alex, Bradley, Cory, Chip, and Mia.
Bradley may have limited screen time, but the entire plot for Alex and Chip is about bringing Bradley home from Minsk, while Cory's storyline inevitably leads him down the same path, especially in a reveal that may go down as one of the show's best. Cory's betrayal of Celine by allowing Alex to use Celine's words to show the truth of who she really is demonstrates The Morning Show at its best when thinking about plot twists and dramatic rises to action. It's unpredictable, it's bold, and it's exactly what The Morning Show needed to get itself back in the conversation of good television after a strangely mediocre season.
The finale is explosive in all the right ways, creating a strong conclusion that also found a way to finally unite many of its main characters toward a common goal.
As for Mia, The Morning Show devoted Mia's season to an evolution in how she looks at her job and her worth. After losing out on Head of News to Ben, Mia took on a stronger persona, one that would not be so easily pushed around by the UBN system.
Yet, her role in the finale is a mix of old and new. Outside of potentially being Chris's agent or manager, it is not entirely clear what role Mia has at UBN anymore, outside of a previous reference to whatever deal she aimed to make with the studio. However, The Morning Show does use Mia to find the truth behind Alex's deep fake from the beginning of the season as a way to answer one of the bigger AI-related questions in connection to Celine's manipulation of the group.
Alex and Bradley's reunion is the high point in emotional moments in the finale. Alex's determination to bring Bradley home in the final episodes of the season addresses that Bradley and Alex's relationship is the most important part of the show. Yet, once again, the series had chosen to step away from being at the center of it for a majority of the episodes, choosing instead to have them go on their own journeys.
Moving forward, The Morning Show needs to keep Alex and Bradley together. The series is at its best when the two of them are working together and sharing space in the same room or storyline. Separating them has not opened the show in a positive manner. Instead, it only hurts it. The final shot being of Bradley and Alex together should be a signal to the series that their dynamic needs to remain front and center, which includes keeping them in storylines together, not keeping them apart.
Season 4 was mostly a difficult season to get behind. Not nearly representing the best of what this show is capable of, these episodes struggled to make a comeback from how season 3 left everyone. Season 4 does not quite make the same mistake, as this conclusion is more open-ended, leaving room for reunions and the real rebuild of not just UBN, but the series as a whole that can step away from executive administration as its main plot point. Instead, it can get back to what makes this show great: journalism and investigative reporting that leans heavily into the news industry and all the issues that come with it.